Ända sedan 1960-talet har idén om ett symbiotiskt partnerskap mellan dator och människa presenterats och att detta partnerskap kan ge lösningar bättre än människan ensam kan. Detta symbiotiska partnerskap har spridit sig till processuell generering (PCG) genom angripningssättet “blandade initiativ”, där människa och dator turas om bidra med lösningar. Inom spelutveckling kan viss innehåll skapas bättre av en generator och en annan del av en människa. Denna forskning fokuserar på att tillämpa den “blandade initiativ” metoden för att skapa uppdrag i “dungeon” spel, genom den utvecklade artefakten kan användaren skapa uppdrag i “Evolutionary dungeon designer” (EDD) för att designa nivåer av spelgenren “dungeons”. Artefakten använder en generator för att ge användaren automatisk genererade förslag. Generatorn har utvärderats genom ett “expressive range”-experiment som utvärderade dominansen av de aktioner som fungerar som byggstenar för uppdragen. Utöver experimentet genomfördes en användarstudie för att utvärdera artefaktens användbarhet. Mottagandet av artefakten i användarstudien var positivt. En majoritet av deltagarna upplevde en ökad kreativitet och beskrev artefakten som ett resurseffektivt verktyg för spelutvecklare, som bidrar med snabba lösningar och hjälper till att motverka inspirationsblockeringar. / Ever since the 1960s the idea of a symbiotic partnership between computer and man has been laid out, suggesting a partnership can provide solutions better than man alone can. This symbiotic relationship has been branched out to procedural content generation (PCG), through it’s “mixed initiative” approach, taking turns to provide suggestions. Within game development, some content is better created by a generator, and some by a human. This research focuses on applying the mixed initiative approach in quest creation in dungeon games, through an artefact that lets the user create quests in “Evolutionary dungeon designer” (EDD) to design dungeons in dungeon games. The artefact developed uses a generator to provide the user with automatic generated suggestions. The generator has been evaluated through an expressive range experiment to investigate the dominance of the actions which acts like building blocks for the quests. In addition to the experiment a user study was conducted. The result of the user study was that the experiences relating to the artefact were positive. A majority of the participants experienced increased creativity and described the artefact as a resource efficient tool for game developers, providing fast solutions and helping reduce inspirational blockages.

Role-playing games (RPGs) rely on interesting and varied experiences to maintain player attention. These experiences are often provided through quests, which give players tasks that are used to advance stories or events unfolding in the game. Traditional quests in video games require very specific conditions to be met, and for participating members to advance them by carrying out pre-defined actions. These types of quests are generated with perfect knowledge of the game world and are able to force desired behaviors out of the relevant non-player characters (NPCs). This becomes a major issue in massive multiplayer online (MMO) when other players can often disrupt the conditions needed for quests to unfold in a believable and immersive way, leading to the absence of a genuine multiplayer RPG experience. Our proposed solution is to dynamically create quests from real-time information on the unscripted actions of other NPCs and players in a game. This thesis shows that it is possible to create logical quests without global information knowledge, pre-defined story-trees, or prescribed player and NPC behavior. This allows players to become involved in storylines without having to perform any specific actions. Results are shown through a game scenario created from the Panoptyk Engine, a game engine in early development designed to test AI reasoning with information and the removal of the distinction between NPC and human players. We focus on quests issued by the NPC faction leaders of several in-game groups known as factions. Our generated quests are created logically from the pre-defined personality of each NPC leader, their memory of previous events, and information given to them by in-game sources. Long-spanning conflicts are seen to emerge from factions issuing quests against each other; these conflicts can be represented in a coherent narrative. A user study shows that players felt quests were logical, that players were able to recognize quests were based on events happening in the game, and that players experienced follow-up consequences from their actions in quests.

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are one of the most popular genres in video games that combine massively multiplayer online genres with role-playing gameplay. MMORPGs’ featured social interaction and forms of level pro- gression through quest completion are the core for gaining players’ attention. Varied and challenging quests play an essential part in retaining that attention. However, well-crafted content takes much longer to develop with human efforts than it does to consume, and the dominant procedural content generation models for quests suffer from the drawback of being incompatible with dynamic world changes and the feeling of repetition over time. The proposed solution is to dynamically generate contextu- ally relevant quests with real-time information collected from the players. This thesis is to show that it is possible to generate contextually dynamic quests that could fit into the background story with only the information gathered from the players in real-time. To validate the proposed solution, a text-based MMO scenario is generated from the Panoptyk Engine, an information-driven game engine designed to run massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) without the distinction between NPCs and human players. The engine is intended to serve as a platform for simulating human/robot interaction. In this case, a quest simulation is built where quests are given by the NPC faction leaders utilizing the information gathered through ongoing events; players or robots belonging to certain factions will be taking and completing the quests. ivThe results of the 14-person survey showed some successes and some limitations. There was strong agreement in players understanding of what the quest was asking for, quests were related to other agents the player had seen in the world, quests involved agents that the player had interactions with, quests were related to things happening in the game world, quests were interesting. There was regular agreement on players understanding of quests that were designed entirely before the player started playing, quests were generated using a basic template with details filled in based on the player’s actions, and quests were dynamically generated. It was inconclusive with players understanding of quest motivation and previous quests the player had completed having an impact on the next quests.